Meridian
by antepathy
Summary: What if Deadlock had betrayed them up at the end of the Drift series? Noncon, angst, dark, sticky.  Drift/Deadlock, Wing, Megatron.
1. Chapter 1

A/N Yeah, the title for this document on my flashdrive is Horribly Self-Indulgent AU. Every fanfic writer writes for their own self-indulgence, but this is...whoooo beyond even that. Many, many dark themes, noncon, other consent issues, sticky, etc.

Prologue

The battle was over, the cyberdrenaline beginning to ebb, too quickly, from Deadlock's systems. He'd needed the battle, like some sort of drug, needed the violence, the hard rush of life crashing into death. The swords had only been…more addictive, more personal, a refinement he decided he liked, as he stroked one thumb down a blade, through the gummy lines of energon and alien fluid. Close, intimate. Personal.

He wiped the blade across the bevel on his forearm before sliding it into the scabbard. "Secure him," he said, feeling the note of command, hard as steel, rasp in his voice, matching the slide of the sword. It felt…good. In control, again. Finally.

Lockdown frowned, nasal plating crinkling in something like distaste. Deadlock flicked an optic at him. Complain all he might, he was hired to do a job: to retrieve Deadlock. Deadlock had considerable leeway, then, to set terms. Even Lockdown knew that if it came down toe-to-toe, Deadlock could win, fight his way from the hunter's pursuit.

But why not play along? It was what Deadlock had wanted all along, after all—to get back to the war, back to fighting. If he could get that—and a little bonus for his time and trouble—why not?

It was, after all, the Decepticon way.

Deadlock couldn't keep the swagger from his walk, crossing the littered battlefield. The slave traders were gathering the rest of the Knights, bodily tossing some of them onto a gravsled. But Wing…Wing knelt, an inhibitor clamp around his frame, pinning his wings to his body. He was battered from the battle, dented, stained with energon, and would have died, had Deadlock not jerked the blaster off a dead slaver, shooting Braid in the arm to deflect a fatal blow.

"You," Deadlock said, the smirk coloring his voice, "owe me your life." Irony, sweet and sharp.

"Drift," Wing said, gold optics still glazed, uncomprehending. The arrogant jet—he'd been so certain of everything: his rightness, his superiority. He had earned this comedown.

And it would get worse, if Deadlock had any say in it. "Deadlock," he answered.

The sensuous mouth twitched. "So…it's been a lie."

Deadlock felt his own mouth curl into a smirk. "Everything."

"I…can't believe that."

A glitter of the blue optics Deadlock couldn't wait to change. "You will."

[***]

Wing's foot scraped loudly in the small room. His optics cycled low in the darkness, the gold a dim amber glow. A row of energon cubes lay nearby, full. Why fuel? There was no purpose, no point. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to be alive. He'd been wrong—tragically, monumentally wrong. And others had died, while he…had lived.

Five days he'd been here, the vibration of a ship's drive under him, something he only distantly remembered from their long-ago, headlong flight from a burning Cybertron. A ship, again. Hurling him towards a once-again unknown future. He hadn't realized howmuch he'd counted on stability, familiarity, until it was torn from him. The City.

And Drift. Or…whoever Drift was.

The images flashed bright in the darkness, no matter how tightly Wing shuttered his optics: Cloudburst falling, his deep battlecry cut abruptly short; sharp screams of pain; clashes of metal on metal; the dull buzz-burst of blaster discharge, bolts of energy, pellets of pure color and light. Too much action, too much stimuli colliding all at once, shattering the beautiful image of the peace of Crystal City into bright, noisy shards.

Wing could have wept, were he not numb, as though tears were solace he did not deserve.

A footfall, outside and then the whine of the old cell door rolling aside. Wing didn't even look up: what was the point? Why gift whoever it was with his curiosity?

"Wing." A wry amusement in the voice. Deadlock.

"Yes." Giving nothing more: Wing had so very little to give. Even the word seemed an effort.

A movement, Deadlock dropping into a low squat. His face was curved into that hard smirk that set something trembling with unease near Wing's spark. "At least you're alive," he said, voice thick with some rich amusement….

…that curdled in Wing's audio. "I'd rather be with the others."

A twitch of one optic shutter, the smile ruffling before resettling. "How much attention did you pay for what I'd rather do?"

"I was trying to help you! I rescued you!"

"I didn't need rescue." The mouth twitched, denying reality. The slavers would have killed him that first night. He knew it, Wing thought. He had to. But he was deliberately shoving that aside, clinging to some hard resentment.

"Drift-."

Deadlock shook his head, optics flicking in semi-amused tolerance. "Not quick to catch on," he said, mildly. "That's your problem."

"It doesn't matter. You're Drift. Deny it all you want." A flash of the gold optics.

Deadlock shook his head. "I'll win this one, Wing."

Wing folded his hands on his upraised thighs. "What do you want with me?"

A dark laugh, and a hand brushing the framing of his shin. "You."

"Some petty revenge," Wing said. He straightened, his wings grating against the wall behind him.

Deadlock snorted, shaking his head again. "You never understood me, Wing." His head tilted to the opposite wall. "Revenge. Simplistic." He sounded insulted.

"Well then, what is this all about?"

"Proving the same point to you you were trying to prove to me." Deadlock leaned forward, the crest of his helm catching Wing's. He tilted up, drawing the jet's face up with it, optics blue as ice in the gold wash, mouthplates hard against Wing's.

"What point is that?" Wing asked, trying to draw his head back, caught between Deadlock's voracious smile and the unforgiving wall.

"Superiority, Wing," Deadlock said, burying his rough laughter in a hard kiss.

Wing's hands came up, against the white spaulders—so familiar, the designs of Crystal City—yet seemingly over something alien and ugly and hard. Everything Dai Atlas had warned him of. Everything he'd refused to believe. He pushed against the armor, trying to make space, tear his mouth free. "Force," he managed. "Ownership."

Deadlock caught one of Wing's mouthplates, biting down. "And what," he asked, around the bite, optics blue, coy sparks, "would you call what you did to me?"


	2. Chapter 2

R  
>IDW Meridian AU<br>Deadlock/Wing, Lockdown  
>sticky (non graphic), noncon.<p>

Wing cried out, Drift's hands hard on his wrists, pinning him to the ground. Deadlock, he thought, biting down another sound of pure pain. In the darkness of the small room, the white armor, blue optics, seemed to glow, as though from some hidden power, as Deadlock jammed a knee against Wing's thigh. Deadlock wanted his pain, Wing thought. He was venting some seemingly endless well of rage, upon Wing's body. And Wing could endure. He had endured worse.

It didn't make the pain stop. It didn't make the other hurt lessen, either: that this was Drift, the mech he'd saved, the mech he'd poured his spark into remaking, into showing him hope and peace and beauty.

And that this was the coin in which he was repaid.

The mouth covered his, hot and hard, bruising his lip plates, as if drinking in his cry of pain.

"What's the matter, Wing?" Deadlock laughed, breaking the kiss, lowering his body onto the jet's, grinding his pelvic frame against Wing's.

"Why me?"

"Why me?" Deadlock parroted back, half taunting. But only half.

"Drift," Wing whimpered, trying to twist his wrists free. "You needed help. I wanted to help you. It's what we do. It's the best of what we are capable of."

"You see how well that turned out." Deadlock gave a twisted grin, shoving the jet's knees aside with his own. He ground his frame over the jet's, metal against metal. He wedged his face into Wing's throat, biting, sucking on the cables, growling possessively.

"What," Wing gasped, trying to turn his head, open his throat against Deadlock's bite, "are you going to do with me?"

The laugh vibrated against him, sending dark ripples over his net, like liquid amethyst. "Take you. As much as I want." One hand, as if demonstrating, crept down between their bodies, squeezing at the interface hatch.

Despite himself, Wing arched into the touch, too laden with memories of what that touch used to be like, of Drift's clumsy, yearning touches. "What will that do?" Wing whispered.

Deadlock's growl melted into a shadowy purr. "Show you your place, Wing." The hand squeezed again, thumb finding the release. Wing squirmed, but Deadlock's hand slipped down, fingertips almost gentle over the valve cover. "You had your chance to try to turn me. Now it's," the valve cover clicked aside, Wing shuddering with involuntary desire. Deadlock had learned, through those long slow months, all the secrets of Wing's body, "my turn."

[***]

Deadlock strode to the small ship's bridge. Lockdown cast one glance over his shoulder, and turned back, showily, to the monitor in front of him. Trying, Deadlock thought, to tell Deadlock he was cargo.

Deadlock was not cargo. Not a bounty. "Arrival."

"Soon enough." Lockdown's voice said quite the opposite—not soon enough, that he couldn't wait to unload Deadlock.  
>Deadlock snorted. He didn't much care for Lockdown's company, either. Mercenary. He didn't believe. He didn't have the vision Megatron had. A soldier for hire, barely better than an Autobot. Because at least Lockdown was honest about what he was.<p>

"Pretty reward," Deadlock said, studying the spiked shoulders.

"I'd say I've earned it," Lockdown replied, without turning.

"Earned it. You found me."

"Better for you I found you than Turmoil."

Deadlock shrugged. Was that supposed to be frightening? "Better for you. And Turmoil."

A growl and Lockdown flicked a dark glance over his shoulder. "You seem fairly confident Megatron will be happy to see you."  
>A bark of a laugh. "He and I have…history." Understatement. A reunion he was almost looking forward to.<p>

"That why you brought the bribe? So confident in his indulgence."

Bribe. It took a handful of kliks to sink through Deadlock's processor. "Wing is mine," he snarled, glaring daggers at the seated back.  
>The broad shoulders arced into a shrug, the voice was decidedly noncommittal. "If you say so."<p>

A flare of real anger. Wing was his. He'd paid for the mech, in every way imagined. Wing was his trophy, if nothing else. "I do."

A chuff of laughter. "We'll see."

Deadlock felt his fists ball, hard and ready. Hit him, part of his mind thought. But another pulled back, telling him it would be better to prove Lockdown wrong. Let him see. Let him see how Wing was Deadlock's, how Megatron valued Deadlock and his wants.

Let him see.

Then kill him.

[***]

"You don't need to bind me," Wing said, quietly, obediently holding his wrists out. "I have no place to go." All the agony of a mech who has lost his entire world, thrice over, in his voice.

"Have my own reasons," Deadlock said, snapping the cuffs around the deceptively powerful wrists. He couldn't resist the possessive stroke of his hands over Wing's, pulling on the fingers, curling into the palms. He stepped back, studying Wing through the optics of a stranger—the armor gleaming white, except where marred from the battle. The posture still erect, supple, the shoulders broad and high, looking unbroken, proud.

Deadlock fought the urge to take Wing right there. Not to bring down that quiet pride, but to touch it, claim it, own it.

He shook it off. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" An almost worried pinch of the mouth that Deadlock had to resist kissing away. "If I even have the right to know."

Deadlock smirked. "To meet Megatron." He tugged on the cuffs, pulling Wing forward. "Unlike your Circle, we're not afraid of being 'contaminated' by newcomers." The smile on his face turned sweet as antifreeze. "In fact, the other way around."


	3. Chapter 3

NC-17  
>IDW AU<br>Deadlock, Wing, Megatron  
>dx sticky, dubcon, violent sex<p>

Megatron kept his back to the entryway a beat longer than necessary, to drive the message home. He was…not pleased with Deadlock. But he was willing to hear him out. On his own terms. He admitted—to himself at least—to some curiosity. What story would he tell? Would he dare, after all this time, lie to Megatron?

Footsteps. Three sets. Interesting. Lockdown's long stride, the still-familiar almost-stomp of Deadlock, that seemed to stir long dead echoes of memory, and a third set, even and light. That third set more than anything else, drew his attention. He turned, his broad backplate a mass of movement.

Deadlock's face, set in the same jutting, almost challenging expression Megatron remembered from all those aeons ago, tilted up to his. "Megatron," he gave a brusque nod. Deadlock himself, rearmored, only the face the same, the hard mouth, the burning, intense optics. Even blue, they were Deadlock's. Unmistakable. Megatron would recognize Deadlock through any disguise—the face, that voice, always on the edge of hoarse.

Businesslike, calm. As though nothing had happened. And yet.

And yet, beside him, wrists bound, a small white jet, armor of an ancient design, optics a gold color Megatron hadn't seen in ages.

He brought his gaze and all its fearsome weight back to the other mech. "Deadlock."

And waited.

A confident quirk of the mouth. "Ready to get back to the front." Never readier. Megatron could feel it singing in his circuits, the pent up need to attack. Deadlock: always absolutely clear and obvious, as though scorning deceit.

"Are you." A deliberately insolent, evaluating stare, raking up and down the white armor, the swords.

"You need me." A twitch of the lipplates, the first sign of uncertainty, the hands curling over the sword hilts, as if for reassurance.

"No, Deadlock. I can make use of you. That's different—quite different—from need." A red-opticked flare of anger. He felt the gold optics on him, studying, curious. Unafraid. "And this? Have you brought me a present, Deadlock?"

Deadlock stiffened. "A trophy. This one's personal."

"Personal. That's…new."

"He's mine." A bold flare of anger, the black hands balling into fists. Megatron felt an old, familiar smile curl over his mouthplates, a rising thrum in his energon lines. Deadlock was always…feisty.

"And you are mine. Or have you forgotten what you pledged, Deadlock?"

Deadlock vibrated, tight with anger. Remembering. And that familiar twitch, that hot flare of the optics, even though blue, stirred up old memories. Ancient, and desire flamed out from under all the encrusted cynicism. There was something about Deadlock, a sharp blade, which pierced through irrelevancies.

Megatron felt a bladed smile curve over his mouthplates. "I see I need to remind you."

A sharp grinding sound: Deadlock's mouthplates grating together. Megatron could practically taste the fine shavings. And he wanted to. Now.

Delay irritated him as much as it aroused him. And he wanted to hone both edges on Deadlock's hardness. He let his optics rake down Deadlock's frame, obviously, insolently, smirking at the tenseness in the frame.

"Not here." The voice hard, flat, but not entirely unwilling. Of course not: Deadlock surely remembered, too.

He gave a short, amused nod. "My quarters, then. " He gave a half turn, mocking a courteous gesture toward the door, halting abruptly. A bit theatrically, perhaps, but Deadlock had always responded to performance. He remembered how Deadlock had been captivated, rapt, by his words, on Cybertron, the glow of ideals flaming over his entire frame. "Unless you'd rather your possession joined us." It felt good, that mocking grin and even better the startled sharp dismay on Deadlock's face. "Later, then, perhaps."

Deadlock balked. "No harm comes to him." A glance, possessive, hot, and…something more, back to Wing. Interesting.

Deadlock balled his fists, resolute. "No harm."

"None," Megatron agreed, easily. "So long as you…suffice."

[***]

Deadlock swung as soon as the door closed behind them, a fist, a solid mass of metal and fury, swinging at Megatron's midsection. His spaulders echoed the move, carving a solid white arc into the room's dimness. His fist contacted the abdominal armor, metal giving with a satisfying crunch. He gave a pleased snarl, that died abruptly as Megatron countered with a hammerblow to his shoulder.

"Maybe you haven't forgotten," Megatron laughed.

Deadlock swept his opposite leg out, footplate aimed in a vicious kick to the back of Megatron's knee. It buckled, Deadlock feeling the rocking of the center of gravity above it as he swept to follow through with a fist to the jaw dropping down to range. He felt a dark surge of confidence at the startled flash over Megatron's face. All that time, all those hits he'd taken at Wing's hands. He had learned something, after all.

But Deadlock was a Decepticon, after all. He pulled back, keeping some of his skill in reserve. Better not show his hand. Not yet. And not when he wanted the end result of this as much as Megatron.

The next blow staggered him back, a series of juddering steps, that terminated in a slam of his shoulders against the wall behind him, and Megatron's face, split between a sneer and a hiss of desire, hovering over his.

Deadlock's optics blazed, the blue lights catching in a net of fine scratches over Megatron's face plates, nearly burnishing him in azure.

"Some things never change," Megatron said, before pressing forward, bent over him, mouth hard and urgent on Deadlock's. Deadlock tipped his head up, parting his mouthplates, the kiss simply another level of contest, another field of battle. He could feel the heat of Megatron's cooling systems blasting between them, stirring the lust-raised heat of his own body. His hands clawed at the heavier armor, scratching, yet pulling closer, curls of metal spiraling out from under his touch.

Megatron picked him up, bodily, swinging the body in a fast, tight arc, so that Deadlock felt the air like a cool whistle through his footplates, slamming him against the ground. Equalizing their height difference, exacerbating Megatron's control, as the larger mech pressed down upon him. Deadlock snarled, one arm, bent for the narrow gap between their bodies, swinging the elbow like a hammer against Megatron's jaw.

The mouth spluttered open, a bellow of pain mingling, melting into laughter. One of the large hands braced over Deadlock's chassis, fingers splayed out wide, the other scraping, obvious, possessive, down the frame, to grip the pelvic span. Deadlock thrashed, but they both knew that for the act it was. They both wanted this. And both needed to pretend it was something else.

Megatron thrust the hatch open, rubbing rough fingers down the newly exposed metal, pushing the thighs apart. A dark laugh rippled from the vocalizer, feeling the heat from the still-covered valve. Wanting, even as Deadlock himself struggled. He sent the command to his own interface equipment, autoreleasing his spike, grinning, growling with pleasure as the blue optics flitted down between them. Knowing. Wanting.

He swung himself up, cupping a hand around the white helm, spike sliding from its housing as he shifted his weight. He smirked down at Deadlock, reveling in the hard hate and resistance on the face. The Autobot-blue of the optics aroused him, tempted him to compulsion. "This is punishment, Deadlock," he murmured, thrusting the rounded socket of the spike's tip against the mouth, cool lubricant glossing over the mouth.

Deadlock snarled, blazing humiliation, but his mouth parted, twisting bitterly, accepting his punishment, accepting his rebuke. The hot mouth enveloped the spike's tip, and Megatron twitched as a glossa flicked against a node. Continuing the contest, turning his own arousal against him in little bittersweet jolts of charge. Megatron remembered Deadlock's history, the bitter tale trickling out, slowly, haltingly, over decacycles—the life Deadlock had led in the gutters, what he had traded, sold to survive. And how he hated to be reminded of it.

The point had been made. Megatron owned Deadlock, had pulled him free at last from that sort of filthy exchange.

He snatched one of the white-armored knees, throwing it across Deadlock's body, twisting the smaller mech's hips up onto the side, settling himself down onto the thigh, his spike hovering at the mouth of the valve. He paused, building the anticipation for both of them, feeling Deadlock's anger, longing, fury, desire, loyalty, all the things that made him irreplaceable, made sending Lockdown after him worth it.

Megatron drove in, sinking his spike into the valve, enveloping himself in Deadlock's ardent heat. The valve felt…different. Plush and clinging.

No, it was just the strain of memory, of time and distance that had made him forget. Deadlock was still Deadlock. The armor was different, the optics blue, but the writhing, the cursing voice, the high tide of desire, were all familiar. Familiar enough that his own desire seized him, and he found himself thrusting in with wild abandon, slipping on the edge of control.

Beneath him, around his spike, Deadlock squirmed, thrashing against him, ventilations harsh and rasping. His own hands grabbed at Deadlock's frame, wanting nothing more than to claw more excited snarl and cries of pain and lust from the smaller mech.

"Mine," he heard himself snarl, as the tide of lust swept over him, annihilating his better judgment, stripping away everything that the two bodies ceaselessly, relentlessly using each other.

He felt the change suddenly, in the slick heated lubrication of the valve; the sudden subtle shift of pressure and shape at the valve's ceiling. And he realized that Deadlock remembered. He felt a possessive, feral smile crest across his mouth, crashing ahead of a tide of desire. The overload swept through him, the blazing heat, a hard cascading brush that shot through his systems, igniting them. transfluid spilling from his spike into the clutching valve. He felt the calipers seized and grasp at him, holding his spike fast, as the transfluid was taken up into the data chamber.

Deadlock shuddered underneath him, optics flaring and dimming, sated, turned inward as the rush of data flooded him like a secondary overload, the smaller, clawing black fingers softening now almost…clinging. Deadlock did always turn almost gentle after interfacing, as though the overload burned off the rough edges leaving something tender and fragile behind.

Megatron bent low, curling his spine to bring his mouth against Deadlock's, feeling the mouth find his in a poignant, gentle kiss, tasting the change in Deadlock's desire like some fine, rare vintage, a vestige of his own lubricant almost sweet on his glossa. He broke the kiss slowly, nipping at the mouthplates, optics hovering over Deadlock's. "You fight better than I remember," he murmured.

"Wing," Deadlock said, his voice raw from snarling, exhausted, satiated.

"So it was more than his prettiness that drew you?" A goad, a taunt, deliberate.

The mouth hardened under his, optics hooding. "Long story."

Megatron lay himself down, weight next to the white chassis, one hand still possessively on the chestplate, spike lodged, tingling and quiescent, in the snug valve's velvety hold. "We have, it seems, time."


End file.
